Camper Backs RV Park in Upcoming Tax Vote

Editor’s Note: The following letter to the editor was written by Joan Schmidt and appeared in the Red Bluff, Calif., Daily News. The letter pertains to an upcoming voter referendum whether to impose a 10% occupancy tax to campers staying at an RV park inside the city of Red Bluff.

Editor:

A vote for Measure A would put Durango Resort RV Park, the only RV park inside the Red Bluff city limits, at a competitive disadvantage.

This is our fifth year of working off and on in Red Bluff, and we have stayed at Durango Resort the entire time.

If we had originally had to pay the extra 10% tax for the first month, we probably would have stayed in one of the county parks just outside the city limits.

The county parks would have an unfair advantage.

This would greatly affect the income of Durango, one of the few Red Bluff business success stories in this severe recession.

One of the reasons that we chose Durango was for the security it offers as well as the amenities and convenience to shopping.

Durango is a thriving business, is such as asset to the city that it makes no sense to penalize it by unfair taxation.

The city sees an opportunity to increase its revenue by extending the Transient Occupancy Tax, designed for hotels, to its only RV park.

The new tax is far more likely to cause Durango to lose business to the unaffected campgrounds and those further down the I-5 corridor.

Durango would not be the only loser if Measure A is passed.

Its guests, many of them long-term, patronize not just the adjacent Belle Mill Landing businesses, but the restaurants and stores citywide.